Categories
Computers and social media Medicine Politics Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

John Ioannidis and Vinay Prasad team up to lecture social media about “obsessive criticism”

Formerly respectable academics John Ioannidis and Vinay Prasad published a complaint about “obsessive criticism” on social media. Hilarity ensued, and many irony meters were reduced to sparking, smoking, sputtering ruin.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Novavax and “moth cells”: The latest antivax fear mongering

Recently, Novavax, an “old school” recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine, was granted emergency use authorization. Now antivaxxers are fear mongering about its use of “moth cells” and “tree bark.” That’s because to antivaxxers, it’s about the vaccines, not any specific technology.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Religion

Thacker parrots an old antivax trope: “Vaccines are magic!”

Paul Thacker proclaims, “Vaccines are magic!” and likens them to religion that you can’t criticize. This is an old antivax narrative that he’s now parroting.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience

Can you get Omicron every three weeks?

A recent article claims that Omicron reinfections confer “no immunity” such that it’s possible to be reinfected with Omicron variants every two to three weeks and calls COVID-19 the “forever plague.” Although it makes a reasonable point that “natural” postinfection immunity doesn’t last long because of variants, the article is undermines its reasonable criticisms of COVID policy with maximal fear mongering.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Pseudoscience Quackery

AAPS joins the legal thuggery against medical standards

The crank fake medical professional society Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) filed a lawsuit this week against medical specialty boards seeking to rein in COVID-19 misinformation. Coupled with previous suits, I can’t help but see this legal thuggery as increasingly coordinated with prior lawsuits by right wing groups.